Quite a comment spectacle on one of
David Codrea's Facebook posts, linking to one of his
Examiner articles, which then became its own
WoG entry. The topic was originally of the "Look at the hypocrite Daniel Craig" genre, but commentary exploded into something else.
Among other things, David said:
"...and would like to see some corroboration from an official source."
At the very least. Maybe it's just me, but this Facebook fella's whole argument seems reducible to "Onlier Ones gonna be Onlier, and they
should be". A sample, from the Facebook comment stream:
[W]with
all due respect, at the SMU level, they don't care if you have your
booger hooker on the bang switch, with your sidearm pointed at your leg.
SOP at that level is to disregard Rule 3 entirely, whether they're in
the shoothouse, on the range or
hitting a target downrange. Furthermore, it's also SOP to keep your
weapon on kill in all training and operational environments, in
violation of Rule 4. Not to mention the fact that they don't care if
you're flagging guys in training or on mission, because at that level,
you're moving too fast NOT to flag your teammates, and they know for a
fact that you're not gonna shoot your buddy. They also regularly have
teammates sit next to "Tangos" during live fire runs through the kill
House, especially considering the fact that IEHR inherently involves
pointing your weapon directly at a hostage.
And
finally, seeing as how they're expected to know the weapons condition
that they're in at all times, drills like this one from my old unit at
the 27 second mark, in direct violation of the first weapons safety
rule, are extremely common at that level:
http://youtu.be/RnOI-zCwwis
Oh, there's a lot more. Of basically the same. (Maybe you can find something impressive in that video. I can't.) And the "due respect" level takes a few dives from the above.
I've little reason to doubt that all this above-the-rules tacticaler-operatorer stuff may
well be SOP for what Grigg might call "the anointed", but "SOP" doesn't automatically imply excellence, either.
Cooper wrote frequently enough about people who would boast of both marksmanship prowess and of gunhandling technique elevating them above safety concerns of the Mundanes. His usual response was "Show me. I have the range, and the time." Now, of course, we have YouTube.
I admit, I simply do not believe that anyone, at whatever level, can be
functionally faster by NOT observing The Golden Rule, than he can while observing it. Or maybe I could phrase it this way: I cannot believe that anyone can reliably align a weapon faster than he can engage the trigger from a Rule Three position. Hey, perhaps I'm wrong. So: show me. Then show me where it made a difference.
(No no, don't tell me, let me guess. That would be classified.)
Look, for me at least, it's mostly the "above Rule Three" mention that really gets my goat. Observance of Rule Three can prevent disasters even when being in an actual fight with real people means you must stretch Rule Two (or Four) to its limits. And you can do any of this while still faithfully observing Rule One.
Ultimately, I'm technically unconvinced. At best, I can see what people are getting at by saying that some "in extremis" tasks may arguably require a foot-fault on Rule Two or Rule Four--and that's it. But here what we seem to have (tell me if I'm wrong, here, 'cos it seems clear enough to me) is a loud-and-proud blanket statement that The Almighty Onliest (however you may care to define that) are simply above safety considerations designed for peons--they are simply
too good for that, and
won't make mistakes. (They'll "bet your life on it", they will.) It would have been one thing to note that, say, hostage rescue might get difficult and painfully cost/benefit with Rules Two and Four, but to simply and without offering any evidence (other than "SOP, QED, N.A.T.C.H.") state that they're above it because they
must be, rises beyond the merely unconvincing. It also sounds very familar to the logic offered by certain others that this fella would probably not appreciate being compared to.
It's well enough known that Hollywood, Bond certainly included, is famous for "nobody who knew what he was doing would ever do that" cinema. The details are so common they're frankly boring. I suppose it is at least a little more interesting to have someone of the special-ninja class (I'll presume veracity in that, 'cos I'm sporting that way) drop in to a public place and dish on about all the things We The Unwashed don't know and he can't tell us more about anyway.
But
just a little. There's already plenty enough to do to deal with Only One arguments from traditional gungrabbers.
